For quite a while I wanted a small PC. Something I could fit on my desk
like a laptop and easily reach to connect USB devices and change CDs. I
considered building a
mini-ITX
PC but few of them can support a socket 478 CPU. I do a lot of
programming so I needed a system that could support a decent CPU. I
don't play a lot of (newer) games so integrated sound and video were
just fine. After some research I decided that a barebone
Shuttle
PC would be a perfect match.
Here's a side view of the barebone system. The guys at
Shuttle
definitely know how to make a compact system, I don't think you could
squeeze one more inch of space out of this. Although cramped at
times, the system was fairly easy to work on.
This is a top view of the freshly unpacked barebone
Shuttle.
The drive mount slid right out with minimal effort.
The barebone
Shuttle
comes with it's own CPU cooling system. I've never seen anything like
this before. It comes fully attached to the case and CPU socket
(probably so you know how it's supposed to look when it's
assembled).
The cooling system came out easily enough. It's a heatsink with four vents
attached to a fan that directs heat out of the case. I suppose this is
better than a standard CPU fan that blows hot air up into the case. There
are some
similar coolers available, although they're a tad expensive.
Here's the case with the CPU and drive mounts removed. Now there's
plenty of room to drop in the CPU and RAM.
The motherboard pictured is called "Small Form Factor". It's
basically what you get if you take a mini-ATX form factor and chop of
all but one expansion slot
Reattaching the cooling system was the most painful part of this project.
Literally. Getting that metal restraint in place took way more coercion than
it should have.
The drive mount was very easy to work with. I found a silver NEC 16x DVD-R
that matched the color of the case exactly. I dropped a 160gb SATA drive
(
check prices) in the hidden bay. I
don't have any plans for the other bay right now.
Here's the side view with everything connected and tied up. There's a built
in clip under the drive mount to keep the drive cables in place.
This is the front view of the finished system.
Here's the final up-and-running system. It's been working out pretty well so
far. My only complaint is that one of the fans is a tad loud.
After a little poking around it was this tiny fan for the integrated
chipset. It had a small amount of dust that for some reason was
making the fan unusually loud. After a quick cleanup it's much better
now.
..and the leftover parts. The most notable being the bulky socket 478 fan.
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